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Brain Disease Found In NFL Players

Posted by Soulskill on from the do-you-mean-smashing-your-head-isn't-safe dept.

SternisheFan sends this excerpt from ABC: "On the heels of the latest NFL suicide, researchers announced today that 34 NFL players whose brains were studied suffered from CTE, a degenerative brain disease brought on by repeated hits to the head that results in confusion, depression and, eventually, dementia. The study was released just days after the murder-suicide of Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. It's not yet known what triggered Belcher's action, but they mirror other NFL players who have committed suicide. Researchers at Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy published the largest case series study of CTE to date (abstract), according to the center. Of the 85 brains donated by the families of deceased veterans and athletes with histories of repeated head trauma, they found CTE in 68 of them. Of those, 34 were professional football players, nine others played college football and six played only high school football. Of the 35 professional football players' brains donated, only one had no evidence of the disease, according to the study." It's a good thing we protect our youth from conditions like this.

12 of 271 comments (clear)

  1. Did we really need a study for this? by Press2ToContinue · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do we really need a study to show that repeated hits to the head result in confusion, depression and dementia? If so, I'd like to sign up to be the guy on the research team that whacks this researcher on the head repeatedly so he can discover the effects.

    I just want to help. Really I do.

    --
    Sent from my ENIAC
    1. Re:Did we really need a study for this? by xQx · · Score: 4, Funny

      In other news, this study was repeated using NFL supporters as a control group.

      In that study, no statistically significant differences were found between the level of brain damage found in the control group compared with that of the group studied.

    2. Re:Did we really need a study for this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Do people become stupid from playing football or does football attract stupid people?

    3. Re:Did we really need a study for this? by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wherever there is money to be made, there will be industry people doing everything they can to keep the money rolling, even if it means insane amounts of damage.

      But hey, it's America. Jesus loves a winner. Jesus hates taxes, Mexicans and poor sick people. Jesus loves the guy that gets thirty major concussions in his NFL career and suffers advanced dementia in his fifties.

      God bless this great country!

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    4. Re:Did we really need a study for this? by Lord+Kano · · Score: 5, Funny

      Then you are not thinking this through properly.

      I, on the other hand, would like to volunteer for the study that seeks to prove that receiving oral sex to completion from large breasted women is pleasurable.

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
    5. Re:Did we really need a study for this? by deimtee · · Score: 3, Funny

      Are you a large breasted woman?

      --
      I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
  2. I love Sarcastiball- by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    'cus it's sooooo much better than Football!

    *sunglasses*

  3. 1000 ziplocs anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Going to be interesting to see if Belcher's brain had this disease, seeing as it was spread all over the parking lot.

    1. Re:1000 ziplocs anyone? by NFN_NLN · · Score: 5, Funny

      Going to be interesting to see if Belcher's brain had this disease, seeing as it was spread all over the parking lot.

      One of his former colleagues shot himself in the chest instead, for precisely that reason...

      Geez, I thought you were trolling but he LITERALLY... "sent a text message to his family saying he wanted his brain to be used for research at the Boston University School of Medicine, which is conducting research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) caused by playing professional football" ... and then shot himself in the chest!

      This guy was the definition of team player.

    2. Re:1000 ziplocs anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Going to be interesting to see if Belcher's brain had this disease, seeing as it was spread all over the parking lot.

      One of his former colleagues shot himself in the chest instead, for precisely that reason...

      Geez, I thought you were trolling but he LITERALLY... "sent a text message to his family saying he wanted his brain to be used for research at the Boston University School of Medicine, which is conducting research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) caused by playing professional football" ... and then shot himself in the chest!

      This guy was the definition of team player.

      Lucky for him that his heart was in the right place.

  4. Nonsense by wbr1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I plraled futbawl sence I wurz 5. It made my dad happy, and me happer. I never get suicidal, and I got hit in ther head hunnreds of times in those years. Preas don't look at my record and see my addiction to oxys and wife beating as any evidence to suppurt ur stupid claims either.

    --
    Silence is a state of mime.
  5. simple, just make brain damage illegal by kawabago · · Score: 2, Funny

    Then no one will be able to get it.